Harry loves breaking the rules
His bride’s a divorced American actress who’s older than him — and is not afraid to speak her mind. But then, says the Prince’s biographer ...
FEW people would begrudge Prince Harry — a young man I know to be sensitive, brave and charming — a future with the woman he clearly adores.
Too often in the past, members of his family have been denied that joy, with disastrous consequences.
Being a prince is a lonely business, and I suspect Harry has felt isolated at times, particularly since leaving the Army. He’s occasionally cut a sad figure trailing along on public engagements with William and Kate.
That feeling was made more poignant by the fact that he’s never made any secret of his desire to emulate his brother, to settle down and have a family of his own. Now, at 33, he’s on the verge of doing just that.
He and Meghan Markle make a beautiful couple, with much in common. They make each other laugh and, as we saw yesterday, are open about their deep love for each other.
There was something rather touching about the way Meghan discreetly rubbed Harry’s forearm in affectionate encouragement as they approached the bank of photographers at Kensington Palace, and again as they walked away.
These are promising ingredients for any marriage, but particularly one that will be under constant scrutiny and therefore infinitely more challenging to sustain than most.
In their favour will be the fact that everyone seems to have a soft spot for Harry. The public love him because he’s unaffected, funny and genuinely interested in their lives. Children love him because he’s a big kid at heart, and has an amazing rapport with them.
And anyone old enough to have watched him, aged 12, walking behind his mother’s cortege back in 1997 wants to see him happily settled because the sight of him that day broke their heart.
He was Diana’s mischievous little boy, with a shy smile and a talent for getting into trouble. While he has matured into one of the hardest-working — and deservedly most popular — members of the Royal Family, he’s still the one who says what he thinks, shows what he feels and has no compunction about breaking the mould.
And everything about his relationship with Meghan Markle has broken the mould. She is all that a British Royal prince might have been expected to steer clear of: a divorced American, who is older by three years, of mixed race, with a high-profile career of her own and someone unafraid of speaking her mind.
In my view, these attributes are part of the reason why Meghan is the ideal partner for Harry, and will do much to make the Royal Family more relevant to modern Britain.
William’s marriage to Kate Middleton showed that social class, which seemed so important when Prince Charles was looking for a bride in the Eighties, is no longer an issue. The Cambridges have done wonders for ‘ the Firm’ at home and abroad. Harry’s choice of Meghan goes one step further.
He certainly realised she was ‘the one’ quickly. A year ago, within just a few months of meeting Meghan, Harry’s office issued a statement, appealing to — virtually ordering — the media to back off.
This was unprecedented; the language used was frank and heartfelt, but Harry was never someone who was going to abide by petty convention.
His decision was informed by the experience of his two previous long-term girlfriends, Chelsy Davy, whom he went out with for seven years, and Cressida
Photos of a naked Harry spread round the world
Bonas, who was at his side for two years. Those women had been unnerved by the attentions of the Press, and he believed the relationships failed because of it.
Harry was not prepared to lose another in the same way.
Of course, the Prince has experienced the downside of media coverage, too, especially during the period in his late teens to mid-20s when he seemed to epitomise the heavy-drinking, drug-taking, irresponsible and over-privileged toff.
One tabloid columnist called him a ‘thoroughly horrible young man’ and ‘a national disgrace’ who ‘rarely lifted a finger unless it’s to feel up a cheap tart in a nightclub’.
He was 19 at the time and on his gap year, part of which he spent in the small, land-locked African kingdom of Lesotho where ‘he has reluctantly agreed to spend a bit of the trip staring at poor people’, the columnist said.
Her words were a travesty of the truth. In fact, Harry was so moved by the plight of children orphaned by Aids in Lesotho that, despite his age and opposition from his father, he set up his own charity, Sentebale. It has grown and prospered and remains a genuine passion for the Prince, and an agent for change in sub-Saharan Africa.
Then there was the infamous fancy dress party he attended in 2005 dressed as a German army officer with a swastika armband, which prompted the headline ‘HARRY THE NAZI’.
He apologised immediately, later admitting he’d been ‘a fool’ to choose such a tasteless costume. ‘Harry was in bits over it,’ a former member of the Royal Household told me.
‘Everyone just took the chance to have a pop. It was a young man’s mistake, thoughtless . . .’
Perhaps worse still was the infamous Las Vegas incident in 2012 when photographs of a naked Harry, taken during a drunken game of strip billiards with a bunch of pretty bikini- clad girls, spread round the world.
Harry was again mortified, more for embarrassing his grandmother again than for what he had brought on himself. Yes, he was an idiot, but Harry has always been a bit of a wild child with a tendency to party harder than most.
His former private secretary told me that’s part of what made him such a brilliant soldier. And what no one knew was that the Las Vegas incident took place just as he was just about to deploy to Afghanistan, one of the most dangerous places in the world.
The Army was the making of Harry. In the ground-breaking interviews he gave earlier this year to raise awareness of mental health issues, he confessed there were times when he came close to a breakdown and had sought professional help over dealing with his mother’s death.
He’d also flirted with giving up royal life altogether and disappearing to Africa. But the Army gave him purpose and some self-esteem. Never academically inclined, he slogged hard to get into Sandhurst, and turned out to be a superb officer who relished time spent with his men.
When, in 2008, he had to be pulled out of Afghanistan after his presence there was betrayed by an Australian media outlet, he was devastated.
He flew back alongside two soldiers, one who had lost an arm and a leg, and the other who had shrapnel in his neck. Harry was on the flight for no better reason than he was third in line to the throne.
He rightly felt a fraud when, on arriving home in Britain, he was hailed a hero.
But when he trained as an Apache attack helicopter co-pilot gunner, having been second best all his life — the ‘spare’, the less good-looking, less academic of the brothers — he found something he excelled at, and that gave him a new-found confidence. He returned to Afghanistan in 2012 and completed a full tour.
He was witness to many who were not so lucky and never returned, or who sustained life-changing physical or mental injuries.
Out of this was borne his deep commitment to these men and women, and his determination to show there was life after devastating injury. He founded the Invictus Games for wounded and sick veterans and has turned it into a international event, backed by presidents and prime ministers.
At last Harry has realised that being a prince has advantages: he can make things happen, use his public profile for the right reasons — and make a difference to people’s lives.
Meghan Markle appears to share Harry’s desire to improve the lot of others, with long-established charitable interests of her own.
For that reason, they will be a formidable double act, and their message will be all the louder because the cameras will love them wherever they go.
My only fear is that they are such an attractive and charismatic couple, they might overshadow William and Kate.
But that’s for another day. Now is the moment to celebrate a very real royal romance.
The Army gave him purpose and self-esteem